Roles of alternatively activated M2 macrophages in allergic contact dermatitis

Alternatively activated macrophages (M2 macrophages) play key roles in the suppression of Th1 cell responses and the orchestration of tissue repair. However, recent studies have shown that M2 macrophages have potentials to produce high levels of proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α, suggesting that M2 macrophages may exacerbate inflammation in some settings. In this regard, we have recently shown that large numbers of M2 macrophages accumulate in the sites of hapten-induced contact hypersensitivity (CHS), an animal model of allergic contact dermatitis, and that M2 macrophages exacerbate hapten-induced CHS by producing matrix metalloproteinase 12 (MMP12). We have also shown that suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 (SOCS3), a member of SOCS family proteins that are cytokine-inducible negative regulators of the JAK/STAT signaling pathways, is highly and preferentially expressed in M2 macrophages in hapten-induced CHS and that SOCS3 expressed in M2 macrophages is involved in the attenuation of CHS by suppressing MMP12 production. These findings underscore the importance of M2 macrophage-derived MMP12 in the development of CHS, and suggest that inhibition of M2 macrophages or MMP12 could be a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of allergic contact dermatitis.     

Differential expression of microRNAs in shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicus in response to Vibrio alginolyticus infection

Till date numerous microRNAs (miRNAs) have been discovered from various organisms, including mammals, plants, insects, nematodes and viruses. They are known to have antiviral functions in crustaceans such as shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicas. However, little is known about the role of miRNAs against bacterial infection in this shrimp caused by Vibrio alginolyticus. We performed small RNA sequencing to characterize the differentially expressed microRNAs in V. alginolyticus challenged shrimp, in comparison to that in control uninfected shrimp, at 24 h and 48 h. In total, 55 host miRNAs were differentially expressed in response to the infection and most of these were downregulated at both the time-points. TargetScan and miRanda algorithms showed that the target genes of these down-regulated miRNAs were related to innate immune functions such as production of phenoloxidase enzyme, apoptosis and phagocytosis. Further, gene ontology analysis revealed that many immune signaling pathways were mediated by these miRNAs. This study is one of the earliest attempts at characterizing shrimp miRNAs that respond to V. alginolyticus infection, and will help unravel the miRNA pathways involved in antibacterial action in shrimp.     

Améliorer les cadres de référence pour le suivi de l’application de la Convention des Nations Unies relative aux droits des personnes handicapées : une illustration à travers le processus de mise à jour de l’International Classification of Functioning,Disability and Health (ICF)

The article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities engages States Parties to collect statistical data enabling them to formulate and implement policies to give effect to the present Convention. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is one of the available frameworks that allow to structure data collection on social participation of persons with disabilities. Since 2010, an update process, prelude to its revision, has been in progress. This article presents one viewpoint about this process. After an overview of the issues raised in the works done on the classification, showing the contribution of the development of the Children and Youth version allows to introduce the frame of the first update proposals. Lastly, taking into account the choices made for the preparation of the eleventh version of the International Classification of Diseases highlights some implications for the revision of the ICF.     

A concept ideation framework for medical device design

Medical device design is a challenging process, often requiring collaboration between medical and engineering domain experts. This collaboration can be best institutionalized through systematic knowledge transfer between the two domains coupled with effective knowledge management throughout the design innovation process. Toward this goal, we present the development of a semantic framework for medical device design that unifies a large medical ontology with detailed engineering functional models along with the repository of design innovation information contained in the US Patent Database. As part of our development, existing medical, engineering, and patent document ontologies were modified and interlinked to create a comprehensive medical device innovation and design tool with appropriate properties and semantic relations to facilitate knowledge capture, enrich existing knowledge, and enable effective knowledge reuse for different scenarios. The result is a Concept Ideation Framework for Medical Device Design (CIFMeDD). Key features of the resulting framework include function-based searching and automated inter-domain reasoning to uniquely enable identification of functionally similar procedures, tools, and inventions from multiple domains based on simple semantic searches. The significance and usefulness of the resulting framework for aiding in conceptual design and innovation in the medical realm are explored via two case studies examining medical device design problems.     

基于本体的电子病历后结构化模型关键技术

空间向量模型是工程领域语义表达分类工具,本项目提出运用模糊向量空间模型概念,对电子病历海量数据进行挖掘。通过模型可以找寻出医生的诊疗习惯、诊疗模式、用药习惯等诊疗行为,从而推动分级诊疗、计算机辅助决策、精准医疗的全面实施。检索结果经过验证,其结论较传统检索方法更为准确。     

本体构建工具设计与实现

从基于已有资源的本体重用与本体转化的本体构建需求出发,结合国内外技术进展和本体构建工具研究现状,以WebProtégé类库为基础进行本体构建工具代码开发与功能实现。在实现过程中注重工具自动处理与人工审核相结合的交互模式,收集具体的样例数据验证所开发的本体构建工具可行性和易用性。     

Automatic prediction of coronary artery disease from clinical narratives

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is not only the most common form of heart disease, but also the leading cause of death in both men and women (Coronary Artery Disease: MedlinePlus, 2015). We present a system that is able to automatically predict whether patients develop coronary artery disease based on their narrative medical histories, i.e., clinical free text. Although the free text in medical records has been used in several studies for identifying risk factors of coronary artery disease, to the best of our knowledge our work marks the first attempt at automatically predicting development of CAD. We tackle this task on a small corpus of diabetic patients. The size of this corpus makes it important to limit the number of features in order to avoid overfitting. We propose an ontology-guided approach to feature extraction, and compare it with two classic feature selection techniques. Our system achieves state-of-the-art performance of 77.4% F1 score.     

Bioinformatic analysis of cytokine expression in the proximal and distal nerve stumps after peripheral nerve injury

In our previous study, we investigated the dynamic expression of cytokines in the distal nerve stumps after peripheral nerve injury using microarray analysis, which can characterize the dynamic expression of proteins. In the present study, we used a rat model of right sciatic nerve transection to examine changes in the expression of cytokines at 1, 7, 14 and 28 days after injury using protein microarray analysis. Interleukins were increased in the distal nerve stumps at 1–14 days post nerve transection. However, growth factors and growth factor-related proteins were mainly upregulated in the proximal nerve stumps. The P-values of the inflammatory response, apoptotic response and cell-cell adhesion in the distal stumps were higher than those in the proximal nerve stumps, but the opposite was observed for angiogenesis. The number of cytokines related to axons in the distal stumps was greater than that in the proximal stumps, while the percentage of cytokines related to axons in the distal stumps was lower than that in the proximal nerve stumps. Visualization of the results revealed the specific expression patterns and differences in cytokines in and between the proximal and distal nerve stumps. Our findings offer potential therapeutic targets and should help advance the development of clinical treatments for peripheral nerve injury. Approval for animal use in this study was obtained from the Animal Ethics Committee of the Chinese PLA General Hospital on September 7, 2016(approval No. 2016-x9-07).     

基于Ontology的数字博物馆通用建设平台研究

本文以Ontology技术为基点,结合Web服务技术的优点,设计了允许最终用户编程的数字博物馆通用建设平台,构建了文博业务领域本体和Web服务本体来支撑用户文博业务需求与Web服务间关联匹配.避免了传统数字博物馆建设中的重复开发及耗资大、周期长等缺点,并为其它领域通用建设平台的构建提供了参考.